wah...what a revelation

 39 and studying.. here i am and this is it....C'EST LA VIE

i decided that i was going to enjoy every moment ...the last time was 18 years ago, now seeming to me like a lifetime. 

   

  i started out by sitting on the last bench, in the last row, arms crossed around my chest in complete defense, i attended first day of college. 

Flashing my i card before entering college, becoming one amongst the students, losing the identity i held for so many years and merging into the faces sitting in the canteen and sipping a cup of tea felt so different.

 To live a students life in adulthood is far more easy than when your young. WE FINALLY KNOW WHO WE'VE BECOME. The most important riddle of life has been solved.

 The insecurity of student life, the career choice confusion, the uncertainity of the future,  these unanswered questions  make living, that time of life,  dangerous in a delicious way.  Looking around, the eager faces all animated and excited waiting for the next lecture or their future tugged at my heart. i wanted to reach out to all those strangers and tell them that its all right, we always reach somewhere and we always are happy. its a journey that will unfold as time passes you can"t know all the answers now. The eagerness to know and conquer with the knowledge was filling the air. 

The confidence of adulthood made one more major difference in the dedication of studying there was no burning need of peer acceptance,  that pressure off i was a student, free and confident of myself and not worried about what the others thought of me or my so called image, there was no body to answer to but myself, unlike when i was in college the last time.

 As the days progressed the excitement of going to college, the classrooms and the stuff being taught was in all together so high that there was an intense need to verbalise everything. Everybody in the family would have to understand all that i had understood in class the previous day. 

 The family was subjected to great lectures on the wonders of food, their components,their contribution to our body, their composition, their breakdown process, their transport in the body, their nourishing capabilities, followed by  the constant reminder to the family that  this is healthy, this is not healthy. The son grew restless and started to revolt, soon the husband followed. "please do not nag", "let us eat what we want", "please complete the course and then tell us what to do and what not to do". i continued my tirade nevertheless. i had so much to share that these minor interruptions were not going to stop me from my new found mission in life. 

Most of the times, when people would know that i resumed college, a three step, one act play would be staged

• THEM" so what else is happening?
  
• ME"  i have started studying"
  
• THEM" wow thats so great", 'what are you doing"? "it must be so nice to do that", "its really nice to know that" and sometimes "it must be so nice to get out of the house and have someplace to go" ( the meaning to this one i am still figuring out)
  
• ME" yeah! its really nice, the course is very exciting and the information,is very scientific in content, yeah it is exciting".
  
• THEM" oh good good now you can tell us how to loose weight give us some tips ya"
  
• ME " well its not exactly a weight loss class that i attend but a nutrition class."
  
• THEM" of course but the end is the same.... tell us some  ways to loose weight"
  
• ME" well its not been so many days but you know food and exercise have a symbiotic relationship?" "how often do you exercise?"
  
• THEM " i do, i try atleast three times a week but  i cant manage you know i have to be in office at 8 and i leave the house at 7 and then in the evenings my children dont allow me to step out and they take all my time but i will try soon". OR
  
• THEM" where's the time ya... i am so busy that i just dont get the time"OR
  
• THEM " what to do ya i used and then my knee started hurting and i dont want to take any chances so i am resting it for a few days" OR
  
• THEM " work keeps me so busy, i have to travel all the time and when i am back i just want to catch up on my sleep" OR
  
• THEM " innumerable more excuses, or reasons that are stopping them from undertaking an exercise routine.
  
• ME" nods the head in complete understanding and then there is a lull in the conversation.

    The husband would look at me sternly, his eyes almost warning me " please do not start the eating habits discussion"    

     The human body as a complicated machine runs invisibly and we forget about its existance during the day. A million thoughts run through our minds, filling up our moments and hours with tasks to do and work to accomplish, eating becomes just an activity, like bathing, dressing.  Seconds after food touches our tongue,not even long enough for us to savour the taste, we,ve forrgotten about its presence in the body. As we continue with activities, food undergoes a fine tuned methodical process of breakdown to give us energy to conduct ourselves for the rest of the day or night.  how can we deny ourselves the fact that it is with this body that the rest of the time spent on the planet is going to be undertaken.

food i realised is  a kind of solace, and eating is a comfort giving activity.

 "i am not at all times able to control everything that happens in my life, but, what to eat, how much to eat and when to eat is something that i can control well because it is an activity undertaken solely by me and i am the only one affected."

" we are what we eat" this comes to my mind every time i see food being consumed.

NOWADAYS.

 wah what a revelation...albeit one not everyone will agree with...

Beginnings

   

           Born into a traditional marwari family, married at 18, a graduate at 21 

 a mother at 22, and again at 30, full time parenting for the next six years,  back to college at 39. 

where do i begin the blog from. ideally we all start from where we came from what we did etc.. like i did too, but i think i should write about what i am doing now,  what i think i will be doing a few months and years from now. 

 At 39 i have started college again. it has been three months  since i enrolled into the food and nutrition certificate course in sophia college and it has blown my mind. what a revelation! so many myths busted, so many beliefs or i should say misbeliefs clarified and pure science is now  leading me on. how i, a commerce student, landed up on this course was so smooth a choice, that i have begun to believe that everything has a time and place in our lives. 

let me start with my foray into the course.

for 19 yrs of my married life i so had my hands full that there was no time to think about the future.  when i had to assess the skills i learnt in the past few years i would say i learnt to cook, keep babies, partake care to old people and keep house. the skills acquired in the past few years were that of a housekeeper, governess, cook and manager. no dont get me wrong i am not belittling myself . like everyone who diembarks on a career path in youth sits back in middle age to think about the time spent and the skills acquired. this was my career and these were the skills i developed because of the kind of work i did. 

with the kids into full day school i found myself free for the day and the search to do something began... well what could i do? where could i fit myself in? i encountered walls everywhere. what kind of a resume could i make, what kind of a job should i apply for? what would hold my interest if i were to sit in a 9-5 job. being the master of my time for so many years, the idea of beoing governed by some body else made me cringe. i realised that somebody would govern me only if somebody hired me. why would anybody hire me? 

to study and acquire knowledge that could be used in the real job market seemed the next logical step. well! what do i study? during this time i read an interesting book by muhammed yunus ' banker to the poor" in his book muhammed emphasied the need of empowering the poor by building on their already existing skills instead of sending them for new and completely out of context ( of their current scenarios) education programmes. the book as well as this thought made a  deep impression on my mind. i started to enumerate my skills in order of my preferences. cooking topped the list. cutting and chopping vegetables was thereaupatic and calming to my mind and i always on the look out for healthy and different cooking methods. cooking gave me pleasure. how does one make a career out of cooking? catering, teaching, writing a book  of recipes.? none of this appealed to me and it got me thinking that despite cooking so much i had no experience with baking. a confectionary and baking course looked good. so i looked up the website of sophia and there it was. along with these courses there also was the food and nutrition course. it was a science based 10 month certificate course. now this was really interesting, even more than the baking course.  without thinking much i signed up. i thought to my self "lets see how dedicated am i?" so began a thrilling journey of discovery, self discovery, of learning, of exams and of starting all over again.